


Sleeping Beauties: The Extended Version

by KateLeeShadows (ThirteenRedVampireBites), ThirteenRedVampireBites



Series: Creative Writing Course Spring 2017 [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Curses, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Retellings, Foursome - M/M/M/M, M/M, Multi, Second Version, Sleeping Beauty Elements, Written for a Class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9898022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenRedVampireBites/pseuds/KateLeeShadows, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenRedVampireBites/pseuds/ThirteenRedVampireBites
Summary: Szymon is cursed.And blessed, but the curse seems to always win out. At least, until the Elders of his Village announce that he's the Chosen One.The Chosen One to wake the Sleeping.~This is an extended and partially edited version.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sleeping Beauties](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640721) by [KateLeeShadows (ThirteenRedVampireBites)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenRedVampireBites/pseuds/KateLeeShadows), [ThirteenRedVampireBites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenRedVampireBites/pseuds/ThirteenRedVampireBites). 



> Here's an extended version of _Sleeping Beauties_. To those of you who have read both, which do you think is better? Personally I think they're both pap but meh. -shrugs- What's there to do?
> 
> The Poll will be running until March 1, 11:59 PM CST when I will close it and figure out which of those items will come out next. I'm thinking of picking the 2 or 3 highest voted and switching off. 
> 
> I'm also thinking of adding another posting day - probably a day on the weekend or before I go to class on Mondays. It will most likely be either Sunday or Monday but I'll have to see. And if I do chose to add another day it probably won't be until the end of March or after I'm finished classes in April. 
> 
> Links will be down below as usual.
> 
> ~Kate-Lee
> 
> **EDIT** (Mar3) - Poll is closed and the winners are: _New York Home_ \- 14, _The Chosen Omega_ \- 10, and _By Gray Light_ \- 7. Link to the first chapter of NYH will be down below.
> 
> **Update** (Apr6): it has come to my attention (thanks to turtledisc) that I've been stepping on the line of violating the T &C of AO3, so to remedy that I've moved the links to both Patreon and Ko-Fi over to my blog - you can still ask questions and read up on anything you need there if you don't want to go to twitter/tumblr/email for the answers.

_As children, we had always heard stories of the Forgotten Times. Most of those stories focused on the Hidden Castle, and whichever supposed monarch had been ensnarled by a **Laevisomnus** – sleeping spell – and hidden away within it’s walls. _

_Only the Elders ever knew how to get there, and when questioned, just said that only when the Sleeping Monarch was ready to rise, would they chose who was to help them rise._

_I never expected that Chosen One to be me…_

 

For many reasons, was I the unexpected and – by the village – unwanted Chosen One. For one, the fact that from the moment I came to be a part of the village, I had been the Outcast. The Outcast based on things out of my control.

I never knew my parents. At least, not that I can remember. Grandmama always said that they were the happiest of couples and for them I was a blessing. She would always grab my hands and set them to work at the bread dough as she explained what came to be.

I was conceived under a Blue Moon but born on a Blood Moon, marking me as both cursed and blessed. Blessed by the Blue Moon and Cursed by the Blood Moon.

Those came out both visibly and literally.

Visibly by way of the chimera red and blond patterning of my hair, the heterochromic blue and silver of my eyes, and the vitiligo that removes color from large portions of my skin.

The literal portion of my curse and blessing, stems from the people around me. My parents died only six months after I was born, struck down by a strange fire that ransacked the village – destroying half and killing six people – but somehow leaving me unharmed in the middle of my parents’ burning cottage.

Grandmama always called me her little King. She would draw her fingers through my hair, pulling it back into thin light braids with adornments that clicked together every time I moved. Adornments that had once been my father’s and his father’s before him.

Now, the clicking is only a reminder that she’s gone to join my parents.

 

_I’ve gotten off track… I was supposed to be telling you the story of how I got here, to where I am now, not so much of my past – though it has a bit of relevance. I never meant to go that far back… Back to the story._

For many reasons, was I the unexpected and – by the village – unwanted Chosen One but as the Elders told the villagers who protested loudest, “The Chosen One is the Chosen One. And there is nothing you can do about it.”

To this day, I’m still not exactly sure how I came to be the Chosen One in the first place. I fell into a sort of blank state after my name was called at the announcement and so I don’t remember much that came after that.

All I remember about the process of the naming is the Elders calling the village together just after my twentieth birthday and announcing that it was time and that the Chosen One had shown themselves to them all. And then after a long moment of silence, with plenty of shuffling about nervously for everyone gathered, they announced that _I_ was the Chosen One.

I didn’t hear the arguing that broke out as the only thing going through my mind was the fact that I was the Chosen One. That _I_ was the one that would wake up the Sleeping Monarch. Why would I be the Chosen One? What could I bring to the Sleeping Monarch other than pain and misery?! I was cursed. What good could my curse bring?

The next thing I remember is the preparation. The Elders dragged me away from the Hall and to their enclave. The three female Elders dragged me away to the Heated Spring they used for a bath and for cleansings before weddings; they stripped me down and loosened my hair before pushing me into the bath and scrubbing me clean with soft scented soaps. After they were sure that I was clean, they pulled me out and dried me off before settling down around me and slowly pulling my hair back into different braids and twists that they adorned with the now clean adornments of my forefathers and new ones that were carved with runes and images of animals. They dressed me up in new soft cotton pants, a long cotton shirt, and a pair of sturdy boots before draping a long leather jacket over my shoulders. I was then shoved out the door and pushed into a carriage where the other four Elders were waiting.

It was a long ride from the village to the Hidden Castle; it took from the high noon we left at until almost dusk before the carriage entered through the front gates of the castle and stopped in front of the main doors. The Elders exited first, each stopping just before the stairs that led to the door. I stepped out and stared up at the looming and intimidating building before me.

If I hadn’t already known magic was involved, I wouldn’t have believed that the castle wasn’t made by giants or something else large. The stones of the building were like boulders – strong and large – and connected like a jigsaw puzzle in amazing patterns. The moss and flowering vines that sprang from the faces and cracks between the stones showed both the age and the beauty of this wondrous and ginormous place, hidden by thick woods and shimmering wards.

 

_I should mention that the wards took months to fix after I arrived. The curse had made it so that only those who knew where the castle was could enter but Kings could not rule without people, so everything had to be changed so that the villages around could enter._

The Elders shuffling around drew my attention away from studying the dark stones. They stared at me for a long time before I stepped closer.

“We lied to you kids,” Elder Graham started, staring up at the stain glass window over the door that depicted a group of serpents curled around a crown. “There’s more to this than even we know but what else is here is for you to find out when you go.”

“All you have to do,” Elder Grace told me, brushing lightly at the shoulders of my shirt. “Is be yourself, and do what feels right.”

I could only nod stiffly before taking a deep breath and turning to face the door in front of me. With no other choice, I pushed the doors open just enough so that I could fit through. I took another deep breath before pushing open the anteroom doors and stepping into the entrance hall.

 

It was beautiful.

Everything looked the way I assumed it did when the spell went up. Plush red carpets ran down the length of every corridor exiting the hall and up the stairs that curled around the edges of the large room. Dragons and snakes were carved into the stone of the walls as well as the railings of the stairs. Paintings and tapestries covered the walls and there were statues of different animals in motion everywhere. Large curtained windows spaced evenly along halls and through rooms let in modicums of light between the velvet curtains. The most breathtaking part of the entrance however, was the large crystal chandelier that hung down from the center of the room between the stairs.

I nearly tripped over the carpet when a translucent woman in a long dress appeared from the left hall. Her hair was pinned to the top of her head by several thin hairpins with strange flowers on the ends, and if she’d been alive, I would have suspected it to be a dark brown or even black in color.

She simply stared at me for a long time, as I stared back at her before she finally spoke, “ _Come, Chosen One. I will lead you to your destiny._ ” She turned away and began to float away down the hall.

Another moment to calm myself and then I followed her down the hallway, away from the entrance hall and towards the Sleeping. Many doors were passed, some dark in color and some bleached by the sun, until finally she stopped at a pair of dark – _what I presume to be oak? I still have no idea what woods are here, there are so many…_ – doors and turned to face me again.

“ _Your destiny awaits you here. May the Goddesses be with you._ ” She bowed her head lightly before disappearing abruptly.

I stared at those doors for a long time, just studying the pattern of the wood grain. After a long time of following one pattern across the door, I finally worked up the courage to open the doors and step into the room.

 

It was dark but as soon as I passed a set of curtains that were partially drawn back from covering the door space, green fire sprang to life on the torches on the wall and the few candles and lamps flared to life which lit the room in a dark green and amber glow that reflected off the red carpet and well polished stones.

The figures on the odd platform bed took my breath away – _and they still do, just so you know_ – as soon as I laid eyes on them. Each one was ethereal in their beauty, and their differences was only something that added to that beauty.

Each of the trio laying there were beautiful in every way imaginable, and I could barely believe that I was chosen to wake them. The first had hair like spun glass, such a pale blond and so delicate looking, with skin flawless and covered in freckles. The second had hair as dark as night that looked like smooth black onyx, and skin flawless and dark complected. The final would seem plain to anyone else in comparison to the others but I could see the beauty in them too. The final’s hair was a soft brown color that fell in random curls around their head and their skin was bronzed from the sun.

Until I got closer, I had no idea that they were all male, but none the less, I loved all of them immediately. Slowly, I stepped closer to the bed, and a grin spread over my face at the sight of them holding hands and turned towards each other. Gently, I shifted them around until I could fit on the bed between two of them, so that I could have access to all three.

 

_I hadn’t thought about marriage or love for a long time, not since I was child anyways when all you heard – unless you lived with Grandmama – was stories of Princes and Princesses and daring knights that fight off dragons. I guess that like the rest of the village, I always expected that I would marry someone of the other gender and pop out two or three kids and live a happy life._

_Looking back on that time now, I can see how much of a fool I was. No woman would ever be able to handle the curse of my bloodline. And I would never subject a child to having my blood without someone else’s blood to counteract it._

_It’s for the best that I have the three of them. They each counteract the curse in ways that no one else would be able to._

After a quick moment of watching them, I leaned forward and gently rested my hands over their clasped hands, and with deep breath from each, their eyes began to flutter. The first to open his eyes was the Raven, and deep indigo eyes met mine sleepily before they brightened and he shifted around. The second was the Blond, his green eyes too tired to meet anyone’s for a long moment before he seemed to wake up more and his eyes met mine. I smiled at him lightly, shifting around anxiously as we turned our attention to the final Sleeper. Honey eyes opened slowly and he shifted onto his side, curling up to the Raven with a soft groan. The Raven chuckled slightly before he began to slowly sit up with the Brunet curled against his chest.

“Come now,” The Raven croaked, voice hoarse with sleep. “Hunter, what kind of hosts are we to not introduce or even speak to our Chosen?”

With those words, the Brunet’s eyes snapped open and he stared at me. I couldn’t help fidgeting under his gaze, turning my head away so I wouldn’t have to look at him. I knew that they would figure out what was wrong with me and I knew that their reaction had very little chance of being a good one.

Soft hands grabbed my face and dragged it back to look at them. The Brunet, Hunter, smiled as he petted at my face lightly. “Our beautiful Chimera,” He hummed, tracing over the large pale patch of skin that went around my eye and down the side of my face.

“Now, introductions are in order,” The Raven said, pulling the Blond closer to his side. “Kings Graedyn–” he motioned to himself carefully before turning to the blond, “Azale, and Hunter.”

“Szymon,” I murmured, staring lightly at the crests embroidered on their sleeves.

“Szymon… Our beautiful Chimera.”

 

The crowned figure grinned as he finally finished his tale. Braided blond and red hair clicked as he moved to settled into his chair in the library more comfortably as the children stared up at him in awe.

“And that’s how I became Consort to the Triad Kings,” He told them, smoothing out his tunic. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement at the door and looked up to find all three of his husbands. He grinned at them before raising to move to them.

They wrapped their arms around his waist. They’d heard this story many, many times and knew that he’d left out plenty of the darker times they’d struggled through. Szymon’s depression and fear of losing them, Hunter’s forgetfulness, Azale’s insecurities in his looks and worth, and Graedyn’s struggle to protect all of them from those things.

They fought, and they tried. They persevered and they made it.

Everything was well and Szymon was happy that he was the Chosen One.

**Author's Note:**

>   
> [Personal Tumblr](http://thirteenredvampirebites.tumblr.com) / [Writing Tumblr](http://crimsonswolfden.tumblr.com/) / [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Nightworldlove) / [My Writing Blog](https://kate-lee-shadows.blogspot.ca/) / Email: thirteenredangels@hotmail.com  
> [ _New York Home_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10057487)  
> 


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